When dice go mad - how to keep your cool?

[Falstaff]

Hello!

I admit it. I'm guilty. I have sinned again and again.

When dice go bad over and over again during a game, I do get frustrated. Now, to be exact, I do not swear, never. And I don't moan or wine every time I have a bad roll of dice. But if a game consists of bad dice rolls and nothing much else, I do get frustrated. (to be even more precise: I do not mind losing. It's just that I cannot accept the dice losing a game for me).

Then, nothing horrible happens. I do not insult, as I've said, I do not swear, it's just that I lose the fun I'm usually having during the game and that's a problem. I do want to enjoy warhammer fantasy and I do want to enjoy having a bad dice day, as well. Most of all (or also ) I want my opponents to enjoy playing against me. And I think they do most of the times... most of the times. They do when it's a 'normal' game, or if I'm winning for I am not a bad winner. But I think it is no fun experience if you play a player that has a bad time playing the game.

I played a tourney yesterday. I arrived well prepared, two lists I felt confident would do well. But then game 1 started and the dice just lost the game for me. To be honest, there were some questionable decisions as well, but I do not feel to have played worse than the opponent. The dice lost me the game. The second game was even worse. I recall my opponent repeating the phrases "that went perfect. again." and "I have never seen my warp lightening cannon perform that well" during all the game turns and my dragon stumbling towards that cannon fainling attacks all over the place. All in all. The dice just won him the game and lost me the game. There's many a story to be told from those two games to enhance the experience I had, but I do not want to ramble on forever.

Now I know: This happens. This is part of the game. You cannot plan dice rolls.

The question I have, however, is this: How do you guys cope with such games? How do you manage to keep your cool? How do you still enjoy the game just for the sake of playing it?

I want to learn and I want to improve. And since I could not find a better forum, I put this ind Discussion. I hope that's the right place for my concerns).

[Dalamar]

When that happens to me, the only thing that works is to try to make fun of my army. There is a point at which you know there's no way you can pull off even a draw so roll the dice expecting the worst possible outcome and cheer for your little guys who can fail harder!

[Daeron]

I barely manage to keep my cool. Well.. no.. I just don't. I curse, I swear, I insult gods. Then smile and end the rant with a final "damn it". After the game, I either smile and it's all good.. or I'm left brooding, thinking something is wrong and I didn't see it. I'm not a good guy in this respect.. but I will try hard to improve on this.

Part of the issue, I think, is that I just aim too hard to win, rather than enjoy the moment. I try my best a bit too much. The effort a game costs is also high. The financial cost of the models, the painting, the traveling, the packing and all that.. And if you're left with a disappointment for things that are out of your hands, it can be a bit difficult.

What helps me, and this is something I'm trying to reinforce in my games, is role-play. I try to include a comical character in the army and a few self-proclaimed important ones. Then watch as they stumble to dramatic deaths or bump into heroic feats.
Back in 6th edition, I used "James and Johnson" as comic relief. They had interesting dialogues with a poor attempt to mimic an English gentleman's accent. They were the generals of the army. The true, undisputed leaders… the ones with the master plan. They only had two issues:
- They were cold ones
- They had other interests than the battle, like flowers and eatable left-overs.
But it tends to make a battle far more story driven, less gamey "I have to win" driven, which helps relax the pressure and enjoy the moment. I'm not sure that works for a tournament though.

[Fr0]

: How do you guys cope with such games? How do you manage to keep your cool? How do you still enjoy the game just for the sake of playing it?

Shrug it off. Remind yourself that you are playing a game.

Sucks when you have dirt luck often, but I just laugh it off. If my rxb can't hit squat, I say they had too much wine before the battle. When I have a game where they hit and wound a lot in a volley, I tell myself that makes up for crap rolls.

Just remember; life... rolls on. >.>

[Dragon9]

It's a poor workman that blames his tools. j/k

It's hard to say. Me, I never lose my cool over it. Maybe that's just because I know I have the worst luck with dice rolling. If I plotted it out, I'm sure I have normal distribution of rolls, but they don't come at the riight time. If I need a 3+, I roll a 2-. If i need a 4- i roll a 5+. without fail it seems. When I started playing back in 6th, I miscast all the time (double 1's) but could have counted on one hand the number of IF's (double 6's) I got. I just laugh it off. Then again, I exclusively play friendly games. I have never done a tourney. A tourney situation may be a different beast with the pressure of trying to win. Even then, I take it all in stride. I tend to be very laid back.

What I try to do is take solace in the amazing rolls when they happen. I played my Skaven not long ago and I gambled on letting my slaves (ld 2) flee from a charge. Long story short they were out of the ld bubble and I needed a 3 or less to rally and I rolled a 3. I wasn't the only one who hollered when the roll turned up. in contrast, my clanrats, who failed their fear test, got 14 hits on 16 attacks... Producing 1 lousy wound which was subsequently saved.

[Enkiel]

i usually try to keep my best poker face (which is, i'm sure, pretty bad).

usually, when things go really, really bad, i try to give myself really easy challenge (like killing a specific monster).

Most important thing ; if your luck make you not enjoy your game, no reason to be an ass and ruin it for your opponent too.

[direweasel]

I always say, both to myself and all those around me:

A bad day of gaming is still better than a good day at work.

Take a deep breath, remember you're there to relax and have fun. It really IS that simple.

[Calisson]

Take it personally:
you stare at the guilty dice, and you warn it.
Make a mark on it.
Warn it that you get a hammer at home.
Be sure that the other dice hear you as well.

When we roll dice at home, we make a difference between white, red and black dice. Usually, I play mostly with black dice, playing DE. If they fail consistently, I take the white ones, despite my son protesting that they are meant for the "good" side.

[Kurze]

Oh the number of times I've list a game because of the dice...

I've given up getting upset by the fickle dice gods, I just laugh when my 12 cold ones bounce of dire wolves.
Although it works in roundabouts, I've had troops pass the double ones only to stay in the fight LD test on numerous occasions also, like repeater crossbowmen sticking around after being whaled on by a vampire lord on a dragon ( the fools)

[Setomidor]

Personally I think that you're either the kind of person who does keep your cool or someone who doesn't. The question if you are one of the latter is; how to ventilate it in a way that doesn't offend your opponent?

[Liquidedust]

Dice for me, well I have a 45%~ fail rate on Cold One Stupidity regardless of Ld so yeah . . .

They might as well have Ld6 the way I roll on their checks (basically I am happy if my Knights have crossed half the battlefield by turn three, it is that bad)

[Ichiyo1821]

Read my post somewhere in the DRAICH section. When dice just doesn't go your way, you just make the most of it. Sometimes people give up too easily when they roll a couple of bad dice early on and lose track of their gameplan. That is why you must always design a list and play as if things will always go wrong. Sometimes we blame the dice for a failed charge or whatever and we fail to see non-dice related things that could have avoided you needing to roll in the first place. Bad dice happens but everytime it does stop a while and think if you could have handled that situation differently.

[Ichiyo1821]

Dice for me, well I have a 45%~ fail rate on Cold One Stupidity regardless of Ld so yeah . . .

They might as well have Ld6 the way I roll on their checks (basically I am happy if my Knights have crossed half the battlefield by turn three, it is that bad)

With BSB?

[Ehakir]

Indeed, make fun of your army. Another option is to try and help the enemy in completely whiping out your army whilst you self do anything you can to prevent this from happening. This still makes for an interesting game

[Searinox Nagharha]

Generally when the Dice Gods abondon me I start joking about it. Like how 16 Corsair attacks fail to even hit a lone caster and I just make it sound like they all tripped and fell. Or when me Cold Ones stumble forward an inch because 'they tought they saw a wabbit'. Or my favorite when 30xbow bolts fly through the air and hit nothing that i only yried to 'block out yhe sun'

[Liquidedust]

Dice for me, well I have a 45%~ fail rate on Cold One Stupidity regardless of Ld so yeah . . .

They might as well have Ld6 the way I roll on their checks (basically I am happy if my Knights have crossed half the battlefield by turn three, it is that bad)

With BSB?

Sadly yes.

[van Awful]

Scotch helps, (to quote homer, "alcohol the cause of and solution to all of lifes problems").



On a bit more serious note, i agree with FrO.
I probably curse or swear a bit...okay maybe a bit more then a bit. But i only play friendly games and my mates know me better then that.

I only really get annoyed, when i make (stupid) mistakes myself.

[Omnichron]

There is nothing called bad dices or unlucky dice rolls.

The problem is that you failed to do the necessary preperations before the battle.

1. Clean a room out, place a red carpet on the floor and place the CoB there in the middle.
2. Find the best painted miniature you have. The best choice would be one of a high elf.
3. Sacrifice this miniature by cutting it up in pieces and lay the corpse on the CoB model.
4. Play game/tournament.

The better the sacrifice, the better you will roll during the game as Khaine will grant you good dices. Of course, if the sacrifice didn't fall in proper taste, you will find yourself getting bad rolls.

On a more serious note, Ichiyo1821 has a good point. When you lose your game due to bad luck, why did you end up in situations where the battle was lost because of bad rolls? Could you have done anything different to win the game even with bad luck?

Of course, there are times where you just have horrible luck and end up losing even though you have done what you can to prevent such losses... but the luck in warhammer is a bit as with poker. Even though you have to play it out with what you get, the top players always get far and usually take the victory.

In my case, I am mostly angry about my own performance those time I lose, because I usually see the flaw in my strategies that gave my opponent the victory. Of course, there are some times when I am outplayed, but there are usually some key moments where I go in with a bit too aggressive tactics, which means I might need some decent rolls to win. And when those decent rolls goes bad, I lose that engagement and the key to victory. It's bad because I know that the only way to win on a regular basis, is by limiting the losses and not taking such chances.

If I lose because of horrible luck after a game where I've safed it and played it right, I can be somewhat grumpy/frustrated without a single bad word to my opponent. They know why I am feeling that way as they know the match would have gone much better for me if the dices didn't go bananas. If my opponent outplayed me, I am in a better mood and congratulate him with a "well played", and spend extra time thinking of the key moments I lost the match. Of course, as I want to win I am a bit angry at myself, but it's all in good sport.

[Ichiyo1821]

Haha really I feel bad for you..ld 10 re-rollable is like very, very, very hard to fail.

Yes specially in a tournament environment. I lost to a Vampire Counts army and though he had 3 bad magic phases, I simply made a mistake with my general strategy. I got psyched by 2 Terrorgeists and 3 blocks of zombies that were never going to give me easy points. I admit I got rattled and stopped blaming anything but my wrong deployment and strat. I play 2500 games in 2.5 hours tops regardless of my opponent and mostly finish ahead in tournaments which gives me a lot of cool down time between matches so I am not so flustered but I honestly take almost 10-15 even 20 minutes on deployment alone. That small window where you can rest and evaluate small things that you did good or bad helps a lot I tell you. Again bad dice rolls are inevitable, what separates the ones that win or place is their ability to minimize the effect of dice rolls to their over-all game.

If all else fails follow their advice and threaten to offer the offensive dice to Witch Elf Covens or replace them alltogether.

[Kirthan]

I have noticed that my dices are failing me every second game. And when they not fail me I roll veary good rolls.

[Liquidedust]

Haha really I feel bad for you..ld 10 re-rollable is like very, very, very hard to fail.

Yes specially in a tournament environment. I lost to a Vampire Counts army and though he had 3 bad magic phases, I simply made a mistake with my general strategy. I got psyched by 2 Terrorgeists and 3 blocks of zombies that were never going to give me easy points. I admit I got rattled and stopped blaming anything but my wrong deployment and strat. I play 2500 games in 2.5 hours tops regardless of my opponent and mostly finish ahead in tournaments which gives me a lot of cool down time between matches so I am not so flustered but I honestly take almost 10-15 even 20 minutes on deployment alone. That small window where you can rest and evaluate small things that you did good or bad helps a lot I tell you. Again bad dice rolls are inevitable, what separates the ones that win or place is their ability to minimize the effect of dice rolls to their over-all game.

If all else fails follow their advice and threaten to offer the offensive dice to Witch Elf Covens or replace them alltogether.

Used to make up for it on Hydra Regeneration rolls, people joked that my regens rolls might as well be 4+ on 2d6 instead of 1d6. Since I rolled that well on Regeneration in particular.

[Cold73]

Hmm...hard to respond to this.
I very rarely have bad dice days...guite on the contrary...some of my opponents have asked me to had their better half roll for me.

But when i do have those days...more often at tournaments I simply shrug it off....it is one of those days again.

Callisons advice about punishing your bad dice....hmm...might have to try that...
my method is the other way around i celebrate the good dice.

When I roll way above average on a dice throw i often step back and raise my hands...
For my opponent this seems as an appology....(look i;m not touching them..this is not my fault)
But in reality i'm silently cheering my dice on.

For me this seems to work....I will however admit i have favourite dice...square dice...not the ones with rounded edges like GW sells.

[Daeron]

I have been considering buying "real" dice with square edges just to minimize my ability to blame the quality of the dice, or because I feel dice really are sided at times. But yeah.. all in good time.

[Ichiyo1821]

Chessex for me. The b alance is great. I use the big ones. In my area Inm quite lucky. I am king at making 5 and 6s regardless of what I am using. 5 + armor, cover, ward,I nvul, game breaking flickerfield saves and jink saves. Hell my best is a "topgun" save and got four 6's and two 5,s in one roll on a Vendetta! I tend to remember the good saves rather than the bad. Hahaha. My worst though was 80 rxbshots hitting on 4s wounding on 4s.and dealing.no w ounds at all

[xFallenx]

Hello!

I admit it. I'm guilty. I have sinned again and again.

When dice go bad over and over again during a game, I do get frustrated. Now, to be exact, I do not swear, never. And I don't moan or wine every time I have a bad roll of dice. But if a game consists of bad dice rolls and nothing much else, I do get frustrated. (to be even more precise: I do not mind losing. It's just that I cannot accept the dice losing a game for me).

Then, nothing horrible happens. I do not insult, as I've said, I do not swear, it's just that I lose the fun I'm usually having during the game and that's a problem. I do want to enjoy warhammer fantasy and I do want to enjoy having a bad dice day, as well. Most of all (or also ) I want my opponents to enjoy playing against me. And I think they do most of the times... most of the times. They do when it's a 'normal' game, or if I'm winning for I am not a bad winner. But I think it is no fun experience if you play a player that has a bad time playing the game.

I played a tourney yesterday. I arrived well prepared, two lists I felt confident would do well. But then game 1 started and the dice just lost the game for me. To be honest, there were some questionable decisions as well, but I do not feel to have played worse than the opponent. The dice lost me the game. The second game was even worse. I recall my opponent repeating the phrases "that went perfect. again." and "I have never seen my warp lightening cannon perform that well" during all the game turns and my dragon stumbling towards that cannon fainling attacks all over the place. All in all. The dice just won him the game and lost me the game. There's many a story to be told from those two games to enhance the experience I had, but I do not want to ramble on forever.

Now I know: This happens. This is part of the game. You cannot plan dice rolls.

The question I have, however, is this: How do you guys cope with such games? How do you manage to keep your cool? How do you still enjoy the game just for the sake of playing it?

I want to learn and I want to improve. And since I could not find a better forum, I put this ind Discussion. I hope that's the right place for my concerns).

Reading this is actually pretty funny to me, only in the way that you described myself to a tee. It's like you're my doppelganger or maybe I'm yours.... either way, I think the best advice is this:

I always say, both to myself and all those around me:

A bad day of gaming is still better than a good day at work.

Take a deep breath, remember you're there to relax and have fun. It really IS that simple.

I first heard this quote on a golf course. I was on a par 5 shattering my 5I against an elm tree prior to my 7th attempt to get my ball out of the forest after driving it there with my brand new driver for the first, and last, time I used it. I got my very first birdie two holes later.

Just try to put things into context. Hanging out with friends, playing games is almost always better than sitting at the office listening to harpies moan about no one changing the printer toner &/or filling the paper bins.